gshepnyc:QifutuWahuta: gshepnyc: Gone In 26 Minutes: Mostly in response to the earlier messages in the thread:

LGBTQOMGBBQ

Stop farking adding letters to this shiat. LGBT is fine. Not every 'alternative' sexuality deserves its own initial.

THIS.

How about just Gay? Aren't lesbians gay women? And as far as bisexuals, no one says you can't be gay and still sleep with the opposite sex when you want, or straight and still sleep with the same sex when you want. And Transgender is, frankly, an entirely separate concept.

/Gay.

I can understand wanting L and G to be apart, and also needing the B and T. But Q? Is that really necessary? If you're going to add an extra letter, the only letters I can potentially see being justified are I for intersexed and maybe A for asexuals.

/Not gay, but a lesbian trapped in a man's body.

"Q" is "Questioning." Meaning you are undecided. Sorry, but it's only an experiment the first time. The "Q" phase doesn't last long enough to have its own letter.

Okay yall. Lets spell out the alphabet here and let me explain why they all cannot just be gay.

L is for ladies that love the lady lovin'G is for guys who like guysB is boys and belles, who like other boys and bellesT is for Travis, who is Trianna on the inside, or Trianna who is really TravisQ is quirky because it has two meanings; it stands for Queer andstands for Questioning

Questioning means "I'm just not sure"Queer means "My attractions aren't about what's between the legs, but what's between the ears; my sexuality is abstract"Queer also encompasses Asexual individuals who say "I like you, but I'm not attracted to you... or anyone"

One group may add the letter "I" pretty soon, for Intersexed. These wonderful people are those born genetically somewhere between male and female.

Why they cannot be just gay:

Lesbian - ladies sometimes take the gay umbrella, if you wanted to collpase L and G into one letter it might make sense here

Bisexuals - They aren't gay; they are not heterosexual nor are they homosexual.

Transgendered - Gay is about sexual expression. Transgender is about gender expression. Sex and gender are not the same.

Questioning - might be gay, might be bisexual, might be straight. Still figuring it out.

I cannot apologize for my deeply held biblical beliefs about the boundaries I see in scripture surrounding sex, but I will exercise my beliefs with great care and respect for those who do not share them. I cannot apologize for my beliefs about marriage. But I do not have any desire to fight you on your beliefs or the rights that you seek. My beliefs about these things will never again interfere with God's command to love my neighbor as I love myself.You have never been my enemy. I am very sorry that I have been yours. I hope the changes in my own life, as well as the ones we announce tonight regarding Exodus International, will bring resolution, and show that I am serious in both my regret and my offer of friendship. I pledge that future endeavors will be focused on peace and common good.

Speaking as a staunch agnostic, THIS is what a Christian is supposed to sound like. "The god I believe in loves you and can do anything to forgive you, I see you're doing a thing he said not to do and I personally have a problem with that, but he specifically told me to show you the love I would show him so here we are." If only more holy people paid more attention to their own scripture, "pray away the gay" wouldn't be a thing.

MmmmBacon:Between ministries like Exodus apologizing for past wrongs against the LGBTQ community, and multiple conservative politicians changing their stance on Gay Marriage (to now be in favor of it) this week, it seems like a lot of people are trying to do one thing: Get on the right side of history, with the SCOTUS decisions on Prop 8 and DOMA coming by the end of the week. It sounds like they see the writing on the wall, assume the SCOTUS will overturn Prop 8 and DOMA, heralding in a major victory for LGBTQ equality in America.

This isn't the end of the fight for equality, if SCOTUS rules favorably, but it is a start. And all these former opponents of LGBTQ equality changing their tune does not mean there are not still many formidable enemies to face. But it is a beginning, and that is all we can ask for.

(Go down, Alan / Way down and use no hands / Suck it and swallow / Then let that penis go)(First Verse)Now, when Alan, that Floridian (Let that penis go)He farked so hard he could not stand (Let that penis go.)(Chorus) (Cause the urge said) Go down, (Go down) Alan (Alan) Way down and use no hands Suck it and swallow Then let that penis go (Let that penis go)(Second Verse)So Alan, that Floridian (Let that penis go) He made the gays all understand (Let that penis go) (Repeat Chorus)(Third Verse)Thus spoke the Lord, bold Alan said (Let that penis go) If not I'll make you gay instead (Let that penis go)(Repeat Chorus)(horn section)(Don't go down on that man! / Tell old, Alan / to let that penis go)

Long term genetic restriction is why I used 50% as a cut off. I know you could have the species survive on even slimmer numbers, but if 90% of us suddenly turned gay even I'd be looking askance at why. I also allowed for the assumption that near present day population levels were a "good" in and of themselves, which is another debatable point that is tangental to the discussion at hand.

/ I'd totally buy tickets to the show and well exceed the two drink minimum.// I envision CWH played totally strait, suits and all, 90's Peter Gabrial style./// DCoBM would of course be a gimp suit leather band.

It's one of those networks for me where I cherry-pick one show from the roster, watch that and leave the rest of it alone. Our America with Lisa Ling- the show this'll be happening on- happens to be that one show.

James!:"You're still a sinner, but I apologize for being such a dick about it."

Is that what I'm reading?

hmm. i didnt get that impression at all. if anything, the author actually reveals his own same-sex attractions and acknowledges that it doesn't make him and implicitly anyone else a bad human being. did you actually read the article through?

SheltemDragon:Serious Black: Duke_leto_Atredes: ThunderPelvis: If you can believe that being gay is sinful and keep it to your farking self, and not treat gay people any differently than anyone else, and refrain from trying to legislate against or prevent teh ghey, then I don't give a fark what you believe, even if it's retarded and hypocritical because you completely ignore every single other so-called abomination in Leviticus, except teh ghey.

The problem is that people who can do this don't seem to exist.

How about stop going after our kids, we need to protect our kids and also study the illness that makes people "gay" find the cause and then the cure

You're so cute. Here's a quarter; go play a song on the jukebox.

Ignoring Serious Black's troll, but not the point he brings up:

I've always been curious why a certain subsection of the "anti-gay" crowd sees homosexuality as a genetic disease, as if reproduction was an end good for a individual regardless of any other outside factors. Does that mean that everyone should be encouraged to have children, regardless of circumstances? While successfully raising children into productive members of society is laudable, it really isn't noble or even necessary on a individual level.

And to head off some tired and unproductive discussion points.

A)Religious arguments are invalid on this point.

We are not discussing the moral or spiritual implications of homosexuality, none of which can be conclusively proven medically or scientifically. I'm not saying there isn't a place for that discussion, just that it is not here.

1) depends on the context, the gay movment demands access to every aspect of our lives and demands inclusion, to be accepted without any qustion. Sorry no sale, too many of them harm children in many ways (see tickle me Elmo)

B) Homosexuality is damaging to the long term survival of the nation / species.

This argument would only be valid if we were confronted with a sweeping a catastrophic wave of homosexuality, something approaching over 50%. If there is any real rise in homosexuality and not just a recognition of previously repressed instances, an increased rate of homosexuality could be seem as species wide adaptation to over populatio ...

2) Tell this to the ENTIRE generation of kids and all of the people infected by aids from contaminated blood products, this CRIME needs to be addressed.

Dr Dreidel:SheltemDragon: B) Homosexuality is damaging to the long term survival of the nation / species.

This argument would only be valid if we were confronted with a sweeping a catastrophic wave of homosexuality, something approaching over 50%.

Because one dude can't fark like 300 women - approximately one per day for 10 months "straight" - to produce a litter of kids? I'd guess all we need is on the order of 10,000 men and 20,000 women (if not fewer) for all the genetic variation we'll need for the next million or so years.

Sure, we'd be axing several genetic branches off the humanity tree, but I think we could survive even with 90% homos (assuming a dedicated cadre of babymakers).

IntertubeUser:Hopefully this leads to an end of so-called Biblical values and basing morality on mythology. The sooner that we can relegate Evangelical, Roman-Catholic, Christians and Mormons to the sidelines of the political process, the better off we'd be as a nation.

I agree. While I believe that a few of their general principles are useful for organizing a civilized society, the blatant injection of their talking points into the American political process has been unhelpful for the past 30 years. Or more than that, depending on which line of history you'd want to trace.

As for Exodus, they are wasted human beings. You get those every once in a while -- people whose adult lives have been devoted to a cause or to a series of actions that have no redeeming social value, and who (if the rest of us are lucky) will recognize this on their deathbeds.

Duke_leto_Atredes:SheltemDragon: Serious Black: Duke_leto_Atredes: ThunderPelvis: If you can believe that being gay is sinful and keep it to your farking self, and not treat gay people any differently than anyone else, and refrain from trying to legislate against or prevent teh ghey, then I don't give a fark what you believe, even if it's retarded and hypocritical because you completely ignore every single other so-called abomination in Leviticus, except teh ghey.

The problem is that people who can do this don't seem to exist.

How about stop going after our kids, we need to protect our kids and also study the illness that makes people "gay" find the cause and then the cure

You're so cute. Here's a quarter; go play a song on the jukebox.

Ignoring Serious Black's troll, but not the point he brings up:

I've always been curious why a certain subsection of the "anti-gay" crowd sees homosexuality as a genetic disease, as if reproduction was an end good for a individual regardless of any other outside factors. Does that mean that everyone should be encouraged to have children, regardless of circumstances? While successfully raising children into productive members of society is laudable, it really isn't noble or even necessary on a individual level.

And to head off some tired and unproductive discussion points.

A)Religious arguments are invalid on this point.

We are not discussing the moral or spiritual implications of homosexuality, none of which can be conclusively proven medically or scientifically. I'm not saying there isn't a place for that discussion, just that it is not here.

1) depends on the context, the gay movment demands access to every aspect of our lives and demands inclusion, to be accepted without any qustion. Sorry no sale, too many of them harm children in many ways (see tickle me Elmo)

B) Homosexuality is damaging to the long term survival of the nation / species.

This argument would only be valid if we were confronted with a sweeping a catastrophic wave of ho ...

Thanks for revealing yourself as a virulent douchebag. We really appreciate it when you make it obvious instead of hiding behind window dressing.

orbister:For that matter, get the T out of there. T isn't a sexuality. You might as well include V(egan) and F(reckled).

Technically, you're correct - the best kind of correct? - but politically, it makes sense to include transgendered people in a group with gay, lesbian, and bisexual people.

First, opposition to homosexuality often has as much to do with violation of gender norms as it does with who is doing whom. Think of the stereotypes that are used against gay and lesbian men and women, stereotypes of feminine men and masculine women. Think of the criticism of same-sex parenting based upon a perceived deficit in not having a father and mother for the child. Think of the perception that gay men are not real men or are not fully men, or that lesbian women are not fully women. Opposition to transgendered people borrows heavily from opposition to gay and lesbian people for the same reason. In the minds of many of those who oppose rights for transgendered people, transgendered people are the superlative form of homosexual people. Until we can clear up exactly what you've already said, that gender is not sexuality, we all have common cause.

Second, and I hate to point out the obvious here, but many transgendered people start out with one sexual identity and end up with another one. Because sexuality is not gender, a person's attraction to men or to women does not necessarily change after transition. Someone who had a straight identity before transition can wind up having a lesbian or gay identity post-transition. The reverse is also true - someone who had a gay or lesbian identity can end up with a queer or straight identity post-transition. It doesn't necessarily stay the same, either. A transman can begin with a lesbian identity and end up with a gay identity. Hormones are funny things. So in that sense, many if not most T have at one time, or will be, G or L or even B.

Third, as I'm sure you know, it has been assumed in the past and in fact was part of the diagnostic criteria that a transwoman would necessarily be attracted to men and a transman would necessarily be attracted to women. A transwoman presenting as attracted to women would often be assigned a diagnosis not of gender identity disorder, but of autogynephilia - a sexual fetish. Even in the present, transgendered people who are attracted to the same gender as their own perceived gender - transwomen attracted to women, transmen attracted to men - have been denied diagnosis and treatment on that basis alone. So while the very existence of gay or lesbian transgendered people is still denied by enough people in the psychological and medical community that they - and by they I mean we - often cannot access the same care that straight-identified transgendered people can, we all have clear common cause and a clear reason to keep the tomato in the sandwich.

ThunderPelvis:If you can believe that being gay is sinful and keep it to your farking self, and not treat gay people any differently than anyone else, and refrain from trying to legislate against or prevent teh ghey, then I don't give a fark what you believe, even if it's retarded and hypocritical because you completely ignore every single other so-called abomination in Leviticus, except teh ghey.

The problem is that people who can do this don't seem to exist.

Problem's not in leviticus. It's 1 corinthians.

Before calling people retarded and hypocritical you should at least do some basic research. Or not, make a fool of yourself as much as you want. I don't give a fark.

wolfpaq777:ThunderPelvis: If you can believe that being gay is sinful and keep it to your farking self, and not treat gay people any differently than anyone else, and refrain from trying to legislate against or prevent teh ghey, then I don't give a fark what you believe, even if it's retarded and hypocritical because you completely ignore every single other so-called abomination in Leviticus, except teh ghey.

The problem is that people who can do this don't seem to exist.

Problem's not in leviticus. It's 1 corinthians.

Before calling people retarded and hypocritical you should at least do some basic research. Or not, make a fool of yourself as much as you want. I don't give a fark.

I actually debated that, I thought it might add a bit of levity to scolding. The original version was even more dismissive.

And, while I do think I am bright, I am no English major. My academic work requires multiple revisions to suss out grammar errors, effort that I am just not willing to put into on a non-academic online discussion forum.

/I'm also smart enough to realize just how stupid I am and how little I actually know.//Sometimes that really isn't a lot///I really hate the 'I just said WHAT?' moments.

I'd be more inclined to believe your sincerity if your website didn't still link to sources and ministries to "help" me because I'm "afflicted" with homosexuality. Or if your site didn't still peddle anti-gay books.

You seem to think that you can type up a nice, politically correct apology and then grin and say, "It's okay - we're cool, right?" And then I'll dissolve into tears of gratitude for your fake apology condemning me to eternal torment, while you say you love me. You are a sham. A charlatan. A hateful, self-deluded man masquerading in the robes of a saint.

I don't think this is the end of the story with Alan Chambers. Eighteen months ago when he showed up at the Gay Christian Network conference for the panel discussion where he ended up acknowledging that people don't change, he was still absolutely and completely refusing to go anywhere near the label "gay" or identify as part of the LGBT community. All he'd admit was that he still had attractions to the same sex. In his apology, he grouped himself in with the alphabet soup. He's finally allowing himself to admit who he really is. Ditto with Exodus' VP, who has actually started referring to himself on his blog as being part of the gay community--something that never happened before.

I don't know where they're going to end up, and I don't think it's going to be any easy road for Chambers and his wife and kids, but I'll be interested in seeing where things are in another few years. What he's talking about though, in working to make the church a safe place for LGBT people, sounds an awful lot like heading down the path of gay rights activism within his own faith community.

I'd be more inclined to believe your sincerity if your website didn't still link to sources and ministries to "help" me because I'm "afflicted" with homosexuality. Or if your site didn't still peddle anti-gay books.

You seem to think that you can type up a nice, politically correct apology and then grin and say, "It's okay - we're cool, right?" And then I'll dissolve into tears of gratitude for your fake apology condemning me to eternal torment, while you say you love me. You are a sham. A charlatan. A hateful, self-deluded man masquerading in the robes of a saint.

Again I say, sir, fark you.

Sincerely,

Benevolent Misanthrope

I think you missed the memo, Exodus is disbanding completely. The website and all that jazz will be going away.

I'd be more inclined to believe your sincerity if your website didn't still link to sources and ministries to "help" me because I'm "afflicted" with homosexuality. Or if your site didn't still peddle anti-gay books.

You seem to think that you can type up a nice, politically correct apology and then grin and say, "It's okay - we're cool, right?" And then I'll dissolve into tears of gratitude for your fake apology condemning me to eternal torment, while you say you love me. You are a sham. A charlatan. A hateful, self-deluded man masquerading in the robes of a saint.

Again I say, sir, fark you.

Sincerely,

Benevolent Misanthrope

I think you missed the memo, Exodus is disbanding completely. The website and all that jazz will be going away.

I'd be more inclined to believe your sincerity if your website didn't still link to sources and ministries to "help" me because I'm "afflicted" with homosexuality. Or if your site didn't still peddle anti-gay books.

You seem to think that you can type up a nice, politically correct apology and then grin and say, "It's okay - we're cool, right?" And then I'll dissolve into tears of gratitude for your fake apology condemning me to eternal torment, while you say you love me. You are a sham. A charlatan. A hateful, self-deluded man masquerading in the robes of a saint.

Again I say, sir, fark you.

Sincerely,

Benevolent Misanthrope

I think you missed the memo, Exodus is disbanding completely. The website and all that jazz will be going away.

So I read this link.

My opinion of Mr. Chambers remains unchanged. If anything, this is a cynical smokescreen to get gays (and their disposable income) back into church and be "loved" into submission. But still condemned.

I'm obviously taking this development with an entire shaker of salt, but I think he is being sincere. He's been getting increasingly short and snarky towards the rest of the anti-gay religious right over the last year and a half. Among other things, he's made sarcastic comments on twitter about Focus on the Family needing to focus on their own family and ended up in a flame war with Matt Barber over it. A few months ago, he got pissed off at the bigotry on some email list of religious leaders and added a gay activist blogger Jeremy Hooper to the mailing list knowing that Hooper would do precisely what he ended up doing--posting the whole thing on the Internet.

I actually think that a new organization is the right thing to do, assuming it really is what he says it is--a group to work towards making the church stop being anti-gay. Not only do I think they need to help clean up the mess they created, there are an awful lot of people who have still drunk the Exodus koolade and Exodus going away isn't going to make them automatically accept themselves. It's going to send them into the arms of the even nastier and more extreme Restored Hope Network. The best case scenario is that this new thing will help them get over their guilt and shame and go on with their lives as healthy gay people. I think that is possible, from what I've heard, today they were having a speaker at their conference who is speaking on how there is nothing wrong with being gay and in a same-sex relationship. That's truly new for an Exodus conference and certainly seems to suggest that Chambers really is stopped with forcing his beliefs on people.

wolfpaq777:ThunderPelvis: If you can believe that being gay is sinful and keep it to your farking self, and not treat gay people any differently than anyone else, and refrain from trying to legislate against or prevent teh ghey, then I don't give a fark what you believe, even if it's retarded and hypocritical because you completely ignore every single other so-called abomination in Leviticus, except teh ghey.

The problem is that people who can do this don't seem to exist.

Problem's not in leviticus. It's 1 corinthians legitimately in the Bible at all, considering that Levantine cultures in the Bronze and Iron Ages simply did not have the same concept of sexual orientation and gender identity that exists in 21st Century Western Culture.

FTFY. (An increasing body of Biblical scholars would note that Paul's commentaries were aimed at pretty much ALL sexual indiscretion outside of marriage, and in particular a custom of visiting a particular type of male gigolo explicitly associated with Greek pagan rituals and whose "bordellos" tended to be Greek pagan temple sites; the Leviticus condemnations also are related to condemnations of temple rituals in the "Old Religion" that Judaism had just recently forked off of.)

Among other things, there simply was not a concept of "gay" or "straight" as we know it now; most condemnations of sexual activities in the Bible are (if one does the research) almost directly related to fertility rituals of non-Abrahamic faiths (and yes, there was a lot of farkin' in some of the Old Religions), and in general an effeminate man was often not considered "gay" or "transgender" so much as being considered an outright third sex (this was definitely the case in Greece and Rome, and in other cultures in the Levant). We don't have a "third sex" concept in modern Western culture, but other cultures DO still have something like this (the general concept of naadleh and "Two-Spirit" people in a number of First Nations cultures, the concept of "Holy Eunuchs" in India, the famous kathooey or lady-boys of Thailand, and so on); there are even hints in the words of Jesus Himself that men who would be classified as "gay" or "transsexual" today were--much like literal eunuchs--considered a sort of third sex.

(Yes, you're reading this right...pretty much the entire "GBTQ" spectrum for Men Not Of The Usual Gender Identity Or Sexual Orientation was considered functionally a third sex of "functional eunuch", i.e. Someone Not In The Reproductive Market. Note, as well, this only covered men; women were pretty much seen as property throughout the Levant, and women who dared assert themselves like men were seen as either Uppity or Scary (or both). There would have been much more practical discrimination against lesbians and transmen than, say, effeminate men.)

Also complicating things a bit is the relationship between David and Jonathan, which (again, based on some of the very specific terminology used) went DEFINITELY beyond mere friendship or even "blood brother" bonds; there is even an interpretation (in Abrahamic houses of faith that are open and affirming towards same-sex relationships) that (again, based on some very specific terminology that is normally used only in the context of marriage and sexual relations) holds that David and Jonathan had a de facto same-sex marriage or at least a domestic partnership.

In the case of Christianity, condemnation of LGBT relationships seems to have started at best in the late Middle Ages (about the time that Protestantism started forking off, to be exact); there are church records in Europe (and particularly in France) dating from the Middle Ages that are marriages of men to each other (again, women unfortunately still generally had a legal status of property, something that would not change for a long time).

Great Porn Dragon:wolfpaq777: ThunderPelvis: If you can believe that being gay is sinful and keep it to your farking self, and not treat gay people any differently than anyone else, and refrain from trying to legislate against or prevent teh ghey, then I don't give a fark what you believe, even if it's retarded and hypocritical because you completely ignore every single other so-called abomination in Leviticus, except teh ghey.

The problem is that people who can do this don't seem to exist.

Problem's not in leviticus. It's 1 corinthians legitimately in the Bible at all, considering that Levantine cultures in the Bronze and Iron Ages simply did not have the same concept of sexual orientation and gender identity that exists in 21st Century Western Culture.

FTFY. (An increasing body of Biblical scholars would note that Paul's commentaries were aimed at pretty much ALL sexual indiscretion outside of marriage, and in particular a custom of visiting a particular type of male gigolo explicitly associated with Greek pagan rituals and whose "bordellos" tended to be Greek pagan temple sites; the Leviticus condemnations also are related to condemnations of temple rituals in the "Old Religion" that Judaism had just recently forked off of.)

Among other things, there simply was not a concept of "gay" or "straight" as we know it now; most condemnations of sexual activities in the Bible are (if one does the research) almost directly related to fertility rituals of non-Abrahamic faiths (and yes, there was a lot of farkin' in some of the Old Religions), and in general an effeminate man was often not considered "gay" or "transgender" so much as being considered an outright third sex (this was definitely the case in Greece and Rome, and in other cultures in the Levant). We don't have a "third sex" concept in modern Western culture, but other cultures DO still have something like this (the general concept of naadleh and "Two-Spirit" people in a number of First Nations cultures, the concept of "Hol ...

For those who didn't watch the OWN episode, what happened was Chambers and a bunch of his former followers got in the basement of some random LA church, some of which Lisa Ling had talked with about three years ago in the episode of Our America that got his whole ball rolling. The meeting lasted about three hours. Chambers sat there and let anyone verbally kick his ass that wanted to do so. He then read from a prepared statement that Exodus was getting out of the ex-gay business but intended to remain in operation. The ex-followers called bullshiat on the statement, asking him what the hell Exodus even had left without ex-gay operations.

A quickie Black Screen Of Truth was chucked on after everything (everything, even the production-company card) noting Exodus' announcement from last night. That was clearly all they had time to edit in before going to air, as the preceding hour was peppered with language speculating that that merely could happen.

I'd be more inclined to believe your sincerity if your website didn't still link to sources and ministries to "help" me because I'm "afflicted" with homosexuality. Or if your site didn't still peddle anti-gay books.

You seem to think that you can type up a nice, politically correct apology and then grin and say, "It's okay - we're cool, right?" And then I'll dissolve into tears of gratitude for your fake apology condemning me to eternal torment, while you say you love me. You are a sham. A charlatan. A hateful, self-deluded man masquerading in the robes of a saint.

Again I say, sir, fark you.

Sincerely,

Benevolent Misanthrope

I think you missed the memo, Exodus is disbanding completely. The website and all that jazz will be going away.

So I read this link.

My opinion of Mr. Chambers remains unchanged. If anything, this is a cynical smokescreen to get gays (and their disposable income) back into church and be "loved" into submission. But still condemned.